The present invention pertains to a system and a method for controlling physical activity during dieting in order to achieve a good mode of dieting.
There are lots of people in our society today who are in need of an aid for dieting in a controlled manner. These are, for example, athletes, overweight and obese persons and others who have to care about a controlled way of eating. A specific problem while dieting relates to a correct or suitable physical activity in combination with the dieting. People tend to overdo with more physical activity than required for a specific level of dieting.
A problem is that there are plenty of methods and devices on the market to keep a diet, such as athletic training equipment, drugs, designed food for dieting, associations for dieting etc. If a person dieting shall be able to succeed in doing so and achieve an intended goal she/he should be supervised by people experienced in this art, for example, experts on nutrition, doctors and the like. But it is also important that experts have a reliable aid to make use of when supervising during a time period of dieting. Also, persons under diet should have an aid that they can rely on when they are without supervision from specific experts in the field.
It is known that a controlled diet gives an as good result as the combination of physical activity and dieting, at least for people with ordinary needs of physical activity, i.e., non athletes, who should combine dieting with ordinary daily activities such as a daily walk. Athletes on the other hand do have to take the same care of their body when preparing for major sporting events, whereby they have to be careful with their food intake in correlation with their training effort.
There are unfortunately also lethal diseases related to a wrong dieting and such related to unhealthy dieting, such as anorexia, bulimia, and disorders related to digestion or gastrointestinal discomfort. Therefore, people at risk and/or their doctors should appreciate an aid for a good and healthy dieting.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,006 by Bergh and Sxc3x6dersten, hereby incorporated in the description of the present invention, is based on the development of the measurement of eating rate, whereby different rates of ingestion correspond to a biologically determined degree of satiety. Eating rate is measured utilizing the variables (weight of food, time). For the quantification of satiety the interval scale of Borg is used. The invention makes use of reference standards (standard curves or curves of normality), obtained from research on a population of individuals. These curves reflect the average rate of ingestion that has been found statistically significant through the investigation of groups, differing in, for example, age and weight, within the population of men and women. The interval scale of Borg is used to record satiety.
One aim of the invention according to the U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,006 by Bergh and Sxc3x6dersten, is to develop a measuring device that allows, among others, obese people to gain access to a method for weight control. Overweight and obesity is a major health problem, and the overweight, therefore, have an obvious interest in such a device. Furthermore, the control of body weight and ingestive behaviour is of considerable importance to athletes and those engaged in sports. A method for the control of body weight and eating behaviour is also needed within clinical medicine to care for patients suffering from anorexia, bulimia and gastrointestinal discomfort, that is to say disorders related to the intake of food. Use of the present method and device is likely to be of importance to those within the general public who are at risk to develop disorders of body weight control.
A device, according to the U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,006 by Bergh and Sxc3x6dersten, mentioned provides assistance in the control of body weight for the individual with a possibility to control eating behaviour and the perception of satiety and, therefore, a method to control body weight. This is accomplished by the display of the reference standards on a monitor/screen. The reference standards for eating behaviour and satiety as a function of eating rate are derived from biologically based mean values obtained through research on samples of individuals from the general population. Using this device, the individual is in a position to adapt her/his eating behaviour and perception of satiety to what, by definition, is normal through the selection of the proper reference values and by adapting her/his rate of ingestion to the reference value displayed on a medium, for example a monitor, in real time. The rate of ingestion of the individual is displayed simultaneously with the reference standard and the two are to overlap.
Persons participating in the development of the invention and displaying deviations from the reference standards with respect to eating behaviour and perception of satiety have considered themselves unable or ignorant as to how to eat and how to feel satiated.
However the U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,006 by Bergh and Sxc3x6dersten, does not teach how to correlate an efficient amount of physical activity to a certain level of dieting. Especially there is no teaching of how to avoid unnecessary physical activity in combination with the eating training.
It is an aim of the present invention to provide a system and a method to be used for controlling the amount of physical activity when dieting. In order to accomplish an aid for this, the present invention makes use of the teachings in the above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,006 by Bergh and Sxc3x6dersten, by combining it with the use of heating and/or cooling means warming or cooling a human body. Thereby the invention makes use of the knowledge of applying heat to a body in order to reduce physical activity. People who are freezing are moving their limbs in order to warm the body with the energy they are consuming during the movement. Hence, the vice versa should apply, i.e., heating the body from an external heat source such as a fire, thus being able to ignore freezing without additional physical activity.
Hence there is a close relation between dieting, which reduces the source of energy to be consumed, and the providing of heat to a dieting person""s body.
In general the following rule prevails throughout the present invention. For an obese person the body temperature should be lowered and the physical activity should be raised in order to lose weight, and for a person with low weight, the body temperature should be raised and physical activity should be reduced in order to gain or keep weight. Of course there are weights between obese and low weight where a fairly low weight person should lose weight.
The present invention thus proposes a system for controlling physical activity during dieting. It comprises:
a scale with a plate for food intake situated on it;
a computer with a screen, and an input device connected to the scale which calculates and stores the weight loss of the food when eating from the plate, whereby a dieting user eating from the plate should eat in accordance with a rating illustrated on the screen in order to receive a correct response of food intake for a determined level of dieting; and
a heating or cooling means providing a determined level of heat to the body of the user for the level of dieting, thus adapting physical body activity to a level corresponding to the dieting level, whereby physical activity is being correlated to the level of dieting.
One embodiment of the system of the present invention provides that a determined level of dieting is correlated to a minimum degree of heating temperature or a maximum degree of cooling temperature applied to the body from the means for heating or cooling.
Another embodiment provides that the duration of applied heat or cooling is correlated with the determined level of dieting.
A further embodiment provides that the level of dieting is determined from a self-rating questionnaire displayed on the screen with at least one scale relating to a body condition of a user.
A still further embodiment provides that a filled out questionnaire is compared with a questionnaire manual stored in the computer providing reference values for body conditions for different body parameters, in order to determine a best level of dieting for a user.
Yet another embodiment provides that a heating and/or cooling means is controlled by the computer.
Yet still another embodiment provides that the control is regulated in accordance with body condition parameters stored in the computer for the user.
In one embodiment the heating means is an electrically heated body-wear.
In another embodiment the heating means is a heated room.
A further embodiment provides that a heating means is an electronically heated blanket, cushion or other bed-wear.
A still further embodiment of the invention provides that a user updates a diary in the computer for a time period of dieting, thus entering at least body condition parameters. Additionally, the body condition parameters are used by a computer dieting means to determine a next level for dieting.
Further the present invention sets forth a method for controlling physical activity during dieting, thereby comprising the steps of:
using a scale with a plate for food intake situated on it;
using a computer with a screen, and an input device connected to the scale which calculates and stores the weight loss of the food when eating from the plate, whereby a dieting user eating from the plate should eat in accordance with a rating illustrated on the screen in order to receive a correct response of food intake for a determined level of dieting; and
using a heating or cooling means providing a determined level of heat to the body of the user for the level of dieting, thus adapting physical body activity to a level corresponding to the dieting level, whereby physical activity is being correlated to the level of dieting.
It is appreciated that the embodiments of the system are provided with the method of the present invention in accordance with the attached set of method sub-claims.